LINCOLN, Neb.—First-year coach Bo Pelini isn’t about to blame Nebraska’s struggles on the level of talent he inherited.
The Cornhuskers have lost five of their past 16 games by 31 points or more—hardly what fans would have expected of teams built on the foundation of former coach Bill Callahan’s heralded recruits.
Pelini, who has endured defeats of 35 points to Missouri and 34 points to Oklahoma, pointed to himself and his staff rather than his players when accounting for Nebraska’s 5-4 record.
“My job as a head coach and our job as a staff is to maximize the potential of the guys we have here,” Pelini said this week. “I don’t feel we’ve done that yet.”
There was, judging from recruiting analysts’ fawning, plenty of potential in Callahan’s classes.
His 2005, ’06 and ’07 classes all ranked among the top 20 in the nation, including an ’05 class rated No. 1 by Tom Lemming of CBS College Sports.
But only one of Callahan’s recruits—2006 Big 12 offensive player of the year Zac Taylor—has made the all-conference first team.
“Only one guy made all-conference? Oh,” Lemming said Wednesday, his voice trailing off.
When he ranks recruiting classes, Lemming said, he factors in how many top-flight programs a team beat out to sign players. Nebraska, under Callahan, beat out a lot of powers for recruits.
“I just rank ’em. I don’t coach ’em,” Lemming said. “You can be wrong on a couple (players), but when the whole nation wants your guys and none of them perform, then you have to start looking toward the coaching staff.”
Of the 30 players signed in the 2005 class, 11 remain in the program. Six of them will be in the starting lineup Saturday against Kansas, and two others who would have been will sit out with injuries.
Pelini doesn’t buy recruiting hype. All he knows, he said, is that the Huskers should have won more games.
“In my mind, I think we could very easily be at seven wins right now,” he said. “I think we left two games out there that I thought we should have won.”
The games that got away: the 35-30 loss to Virginia Tech and the 37-31 overtime loss to Texas Tech.
The Huskers must win one of their last three games to reach bowl eligibility. After this week’s home game with Kansas, they travel to Kansas State and play host to Colorado.
“We’ve just got to keep pushing, keep pushing forward and keep working,” Pelini said. “Pretty consistently we’ve made progress. Obviously, the Missouri game and the Oklahoma game, we kind of took a step back for whatever reason. We’ve just got to keep moving forward to get to the level we haven’t attained yet.”
Pelini said he knows where the Huskers need more talent, better talent. But he won’t name them.
The Huskers will lose seniors Phillip Dillard and Tyler Wortman at linebacker, cornerback Armando Murillo and defensive linemen Zach Potter and Ty Steinkuhler.
Offensively, they lose quarterback Joe Ganz, I-back Marlon Lucky, receivers Nate Swift and Todd Peterson and linemen Matt Slauson and Lydon Murtha.
Pelini is keeping one eye on the future and the other on making the most of this season. He’s holding back some newcomers, such as linebacker Will Compton and wide receiver Khiry Cooper, who might have played as true freshmen elsewhere.
The 2009 recruiting class has 15 pledges, including seven from the talent-rich state of Texas.
“Obviously, you’re always recruiting,” Pelini said, “but our job as coaches is to take the young men that are on this football team … and make them as good as they can possibly be right now, in the here and now.”
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